Required Reading:

Strategy and Tactics

Strategy

Don't always last hit with Q! 10 or 20 ap is not that important Save Q to harass when the enemy champion is going to last hit. However make sure that you always save up your Q for a cannon minion, this will give you two AP instead of one!

Using your Combo to get kills

Your combo can literally one shot almost anything. Once your ultimate is up, just wait for the right moment and start snowballing off of kills. The combo order is to use your Stun first then use Dark Matter because there is a delay before Dark Matter hits the target. Follow it up with your Ultimate and your Q to finish up your Target.

Vision control

During the mid game you might want to consider trading in your Warding Totem for a Sweeping Lens as vision control is really important on Veigar. If you are able to force someone to facecheck a brush you are most likely to be able to burst that person down instantly before they have time to escape. Using fog of war of also a great way to land your stun and nuke down a target.

Tips and Tricks

Smartcast everything but your stun. You do this by going to the keyboard settings and changing QWER to Smartcast instead of regular cast. This will eliminate your need to mouseclick the spell in order to cast it.

Don't be afraid to spam your stun and dark matter to catch enemy champions. Make them fear your range; let them know you will kill them if they come close. Get into their mind.

Your stun can be a great initiation. Nothing is better than Veigar's initiate because you instantly make the team fight a 4v5.

Save your stun for when your jungler comes into the lane. Your stun plus your junglers damage will usually ensure you a kill.

When you use your stun, make sure to dark matter right after; even if you don't think it's going to hit. You should be using SMARTCAST and using both at the same time.

When creating a pick sometimes a better to cast your stun behind the target so it keep the enemy team from being able to help him and it also traps the target.

In the laning phase, hard harass at level 3 with your level 2 Q, like this you can create an opportunity to kill them at level 4 with the E/W/Q/Ignite combo.

Team Fighting

Ideally in a team fight you want to land your stun on as many people as you can and instantly burst down the enemy carry. I know it using your burst on a tank does not sound ideal but being able to take down a tank quickly exposes the enemy back line. Generally you would want to use your combo on a high priority target. Keep in mind however, that after you bursted down someone in a team fight, you will still be useless for around 10 seconds (because all your skills are on cooldown). It will still be a 4v4 then, make sure your team waits for your cooldowns to reset so it will be a 5v4.

Synergies

Veigar does well with any jungler that has a stun. If the jungler comes in to your lane and crow control the opposing mid laners sets up an easy for Veigar due to the huge burst that he has. Even in unfavorable matchups Veigar always has that kill potential with a little help from the jungler. Nami synergizes well with Veigar because she can disengage for Veigar after he bursted someone down. Furthermore Kha'zix/Tristana/Katarina also synergize well because of the resets they get after Veigar bursted someone down. Last but not least, Ezreal is also a strong ally of Veigar. When Veigar hits a stun, Ezreal can pop all his skillshots to help Veigar bursting the enemy down.

Matchups

Orianna is a pretty hard matchup for Veigar because of her ability to harass and zone. It's best the start flask here to sustain as much as you can in lane. Even though this is a hard match for Veigar he it is a really easy lane for the jungler to gank. Orianna would most likely to be pushing to you tower and overextend to be able to harass you. This allows the jungler and you to set up easy kill on her.

Gragas is melee so you will always have that ranged advantage on him and be able to harass with your auto attacks. You can start Doran's Ring and 2 potions here and as long as you can able to avoid his level 2 all in and harass from Barrels you should have able to do fine in lane. You both have kill potential on each other post 6 so it's really up to the junglers to be able to set up an easy kill for either one of you.

Similar to Orianna this is a really hard lane for Veigar for the same reason. Syndra has more of a kill potential on Veigar than Orianna because when she hits 6 she will able to nuke him down. Start Flask here also to be sustain in lane as much as you can.

You will have the advantage early due to the fact that Zed is melee. You can start Doran's ring here and as long as you dodge his WQ combo you should have no problems in lane. Post 6 Zed will have a kill potential but as long as you can land your stun and have Flash you should not die to him in lane. You can always grab an early Seeker's Armguard if you need to.

Ziggs is another champion that is really hard for Veigar to handle in lane. He has so much poke and harass in lane that Veigar should never be able to out trade him. Start Flask and try to farm and sustain in lane as much as you can. Still you will have kill potential post 6 with your ultimate.

You can start Doran's Ring here because Nidalee is not a very hard Matchup for Veigar. She won't be able to push you to tower and as long as you stay behind minion to dodge spears you should not have an issue laning against her. If she tries to wave clear or jump on you in Cougar form you can stun her and unleash your combo to kill her or bring her low.

Morgana is really hard for Veigar because she can just spellshield herself and heal. If it's not enough she can't be stunned because of her spellshield and so you should not be able to hit your W. Furthermore in teamfights she can protect high priority targets and furthermore make someone immune for your stun.

Comments

Since the latest patch DFG has been removed which is why I personally like his build, I use my own of course but Veigar does not need DFG as most thought and the "Nerf" to the scaling on his R only makes people think he is weak. I would just worry about accidentally missing CS from the new q skill shot thing. However if you are good at last hitting with Q I would recommend Morrelonomicon (This is an item I personally use 1 for its q stacking and 2nd since they up'd the cooldown from 4 to 5 making it harder to use). In fact if you feel like going crazy with CDR ( I would not recommend this) you could also buy Ionian boots for the 40% cooldown from morrel, the boots, and the 5% from the masteries.

I am sorry , probably i am not one to talk since I am just a Silver 1 , but when playing Veigar i try another combo . Instead of maxing Q first , I max W and then Q and lately E . The W deals more damage then Q and even though it takes time to land once you set an Event Horizion your enemy doesn't have anywhere to go , he will either hit the wall for stun ( guaranteeing that you W will land ) or he will stay in the "box" where you can easily hit him with your W . It is difficult to master at first but it does a LOT more damage than maxing Q first . Also as for the mana costs , W can get Veigar hungry at first but I think first you should rush a Zhonya's Hourglass then get Muramane while building Sorc Shoes .

Also I think the sorc shoes should always be enchanted , I use either Homeguard ( when i have to defend ) or Alcricity ( when my team is on the lead ) . After getting these I go on with DFG and Rabadons ! This combo gives me INSANE DPS and I rarely even have to pop up Zhonya's ( I mostly pop it when enemy champions get near me , thats the NO-Escape point for Veigar since he is very squishy most of the enemies can easily kill you after they manage to jump on you , Zhonya gives you time either for cooldown or to cast an Event Horizon right after it ends )

This are a couple of things I wanted to confirm with the others , I really like Veigar and I think he is OP :P . So tell me what you think !

I see what you are saying, but if you don't max your Q, then you are missing out on infinitely scaling AP since the higher the Q the more AP you get with kills. At least, this is how I understand it. I am not sure the slight damage advantage is worth compromising your AP for mid-late game. Is this correct?

you couldnt be more wrong... 1st q gives you a good amout of poke in lane so oyu can bring your target to half hp and than kill them with the combo. 2nd w doesnt need leveling because it has so high ratios and deals alot of damage even on lvl 1 .And last if you dont max box second you will most likely miss w coz the stun wont last enough

Just started Veigar a while ago and I really enjoy him. His attacks a lot of damage and I also had discovered the super effective "E then W" combo. I normally don't get enchantments on Sorc's though, I save the gold for other items and evenly max out Q and W, then go for E.

First of all his Way of the Wanderer almost prevents any poke from you. If you try to Event Horizon him he can just Sweeping Blade and Wind Wall and your combo will be just USELESS (you might only land your Baleful Strike, but again if he has his Way of the Wanderer up, it's hopeless). On top of that he is AD so your Primordial Burst won't do as much damage as it should.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to play against him as Veigar?

Against Yasuo the best I've done is keep my distance and avoid getting hit by Steel Tempest, while still picking off minions with Baleful Strike.

After he fires a tempest off, you can go for a small poke to gradually widdle him down and set up a gank.

You want to be killing minions near your own tower, while keeping him away from full health and hopefully your jungler can come in and stun/silence him so you can fire a combo. If he lunges into your tower area, try to trap him there with Event Horizon.

Dark Matter + Event Horizon (Before he walls) + Ult/Baleful Strike is the order to try. You can't do much unless he is stunned.

Later on, you really have to play around his walls in team fights. If you run into him alone, you are dead.

You need the Void Staff late game. Basically watch what the other team is buying and the moment a couple of them start buying MR, go for the Void Staff. AA Staff is decent on Veigar if you are having mana problems, but I prefer not to get it because Veigar's passive and blue buff(which hopefully your jungler will give you) give him great mana sustain. AA staff is really only worth it if you are going into Seraph's Embrace, which really only works if you can stack the tear, which really only works if you have spammable abilities. Veigar does not. I would just build more damage or, if you are still having mana problems, build an Athenes.

Generally speaking if you buy RoA you want to buy it fairly early on into the game to let the passive stack the item. I would just position correctly to take care of your health problems, and if you are finding yourself with not enough mana, get a chalice and build it into Unholy Grail, which also gives some nice CDR as well.

Hey Jacky, I noticed you said supportVeigar is good. Dont know if you were being sarcastic, but I've been playing him supp and liking it with ADC's that have cc (Varus, Graves, Kog, MF especially) that cant be blocked by creeps like Event Horizon. How do you spec your abilities? The same way as mid? I use offense tree masteries as well, which bursts the targ down better for the adc to finish, but i dont have the extra gold to buy a pink ward nor explorer.

On your mastery list for mid, why choose Expanded Mind over Mastermind? I tried it and I cant see any perceivable difference to my game but do notice my summoner abilities are slower cd. I use artificer 1/2 to make dfg come online faster. Is wanderer 1/3 worth anything I'm not seeing?

I do like flask on Veigar, tho against pokers like Lux, I still take boots then flask 1st back.

Would Morellonomicon be a decent item on Veigar? It gives an insane amount of CDR and gives some Mana Regen as well which with blue, DFG and masteries, I believe should give very close to 40% that can help with sieges and catching people with your burst